SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING AVAILABILITY OF ALTERNATIVE SERVICE PLANS ASSOCIATED WITH A FINANCIAL ACCOUNT STATEMENT
This disclosure relates to comparison shopping and usage based service analysis for consumers, primarily for financial products. A consumer may not be aware of a provider's services, options, terms, conditions, costs, or how the service options change based on the consumer's particular usage characteristics. The disclosed comparison shopping method uses the consumer's actual or predicted service usage data. Service provider information is used to present the consumer with alternative service offering options. Transaction data is gathered from a user's financial account and is analyzed for a savings opportunity indication. The analysis is used to match a savings opportunity from a database of savings opportunities, and the savings opportunity may be displayed in a statement of a user's financial account. Past responses to a savings opportunity indication may be gathered and analyzed. In one example, a savings opportunity is presented in relation to a user's bill in a presently selected offering.
1 . A method, comprising:
gathering transaction data relating to a user's bill wherein the bill is related to a presently selected offering;
analyzing the transaction data, wherein the step of analyzing involves normalizing the transaction data such that a comparison to other offers can be assessed;
collecting offer usage data relating to an alternative offering and normalizing the offer usage data such that a comparison with the transaction data can be assessed;
comparing the normalized transaction data with the normalized offer usage data to assess if the alternative offering presents an advantage to the user in comparison to the presently selected offering; and
in response to an assessment indicating that the alternative offering presents an improvement to the user, presenting, in a user financial account statement, an indication that an alternative offering related to the bill is available.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the statement is at least one of an online statement, an online graphical user interface associated with the user's financial account, an online bill pay area, a dialog box associated with the user's financial account, an ATM receipt, a teller receipt, a mobile statement, and a paper statement.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the improvement is related to at least one of a cost, a coverage, a quality, and a rating.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the financial account is at least one of a credit card account, a bank account, a checking account, a savings account, a personal finance program account, and a loan account.
5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein analyzing the transaction data comprises anonymizing the transaction data.